At Blind Lady and Tiger!Tiger! one of our main quests has always been to figure out how we fit into our community and in turn, how we then can give back.
This year instead of flying by the seat of our pants — our specialty and general modus operandi— we researched over 45 organizations that were suggested by our staff members and chose 12 of them for 2017, one for each month.

FEBRUARY: ARTS: A Reason to Survive

Started here in San Diego locally by Matt D’Arrigo in 1993, ARTS has grown into a multi-stemmed organization that has tons of balls in the air daily, all for kids in need. Their primary goal: follow youth, long term, meeting them where they are emotionally, socially, developmentally and artistically. They become a sort of one-stop shop to move kids from crisis to college and/or career using art and creativity. They are working with kids inside their own communities to beautify them through art, they are teaching them business skills in their entrepreneur-arts program, they have artist in residency programs for teens and they have an arts center where they teach from. They are a shining example of what genuine on-the-ground outreach can look like. ARTS has tons of opportunities for volunteers who want to work with the arts and teens and the best way to find out more is attend one of their monthly volunteer orientations.